Box Set

by Kim Petersen

  She held the palm of her hand up to him. “Damon, what did you expect? A warm welcome? A gushing rush into your arms? You dumped me. I wrote to you and told you about … you left me alone to …” Her voice faltered.

  “To what Millie?”

  “Never mind. It doesn’t even matter anymore.” She shook her head. “I have a different life now.”

  Damon’s eyes grew wide. “You wrote to me? I never heard back from you, Millie. I must have called a thousand times before your number went dead … and so many letters.”

  “Yes I wrote you!” she snapped. “I gave the letter to my father to post with his mail.”

  His eyes taunted her. Why has he come back now? she thought. Yet somehow, she knew that he always would return, thanks to that trusty old whisper within her.

  Damon regarded her closely before clearing the lump in his own throat. “It was your father I last spoke with on the phone. He told me that you had moved out. After that I couldn’t get through anymore.”

  “What are you suggesting, Damon?” her eyes narrowed at him as she attempted to piece together this new information. It can’t be so … she churned.

  He smiled. “I have taken a fondness to this particular piece.” He stared at the canvas that attracted his interest.

  Millie looked into the painting with a blur. All she saw now was a colourful bleed of shaded blends of paint on a canvas. Nothing more. The cloud in her mind muddied all perception as she attempted to adjust to his presence next to her. Part of her wanted to yell and demand his departure while another part was terrified that when he did walk out of that gallery door, it would be the last time she would ever see him. Millie found herself tuning out to the words that fell out of Damon’s mouth, while allowing her ears to just linger over the melody of his tranquil voice. And while his honey-smooth sentences filtered through and rebounded inside her ears, the heart that had longed for him for so long, leaped in a fleeting moment of joy.

  “Your art possesses a creative, cutting-edge force, Millie.”

  “Let me help you lay the ground work, get the exposure you need.”

  “With my marketing experience and your gift, your art will be world famous.”

  “Maintain a public presence … articles … reviews … catalogues …”

  Millie heard all but a snippet of what Damon was saying to her, but a sense of exhilaration seeped in through the nostalgia of her thoughts. She turned and looked at him with wide eyes as it finally dawned on her what he was suggesting. “You want to work with me, Damon? That’s why you came here today?” she asked.

  He appeared puzzled for a moment, and in all his years working the rat-race of marketing in New York, Damon found himself speechless, and this was rare for him.

  “Millie, I’m so sorry. I should have tried harder to contact you. My heart ached so much for you … when I heard nothing, I assumed you had decided to move on,” Damon confessed. “But I have never stopped loving you.”

  Millie slowly shook her head. “It’s too late, Damon. I’m getting married.”

  Damon’s eyes glazed over as he processed the words that had just fallen on his ears like the sharp edge of a sword. “Okay … Okay...” He took a quiet breath, stunned, then turned to leave the gallery. “Think about my business proposal at least. I meant what I said, Millie.”

  “Sure Damon.”

  He took a few steps, then hesitating, swivelled around to face her. Long, thick fingers reached beneath his shirt and exposed a chain of gold upon which dangled the diamond encrusted half-heart of gold. “I have never once taken this off.” A faltering chuckle escaped his lips while the yearning in his eyes stripped him naked. “You still take my breath away Amelia Anderson!” he declared with a slight quiver.

  He turned and strode out through the glassed doors, leaving only the slightest scent of Yves Saint Laurent’s Kouros in his wake.

  Millie stumbled to the nearest French provincial chair and slumped into it. She thought she had it all figured out – the people that had played a pivotal role in her earlier life decided to return uninvited. She bent down and nursed the ache in her head as Holly came and placed comforting arms around her.

  “Are you okay, Amelia? Who is Mr Richards?”

  Millie squinted up at Holly. “He is Arella’s father,” she whispered.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  K ate paced up and down the small living room of her suite, and stole glances at the clock that hung above the arched doorway that led through to the kitchenette. She realised that only two minutes had passed since she last checked. She was awaiting the arrival of Millie. She couldn’t bring herself to eat lunch with the impending arrival of a daughter she hadn’t seen in ten years. What if she hates me? What if she really can never forgive me? What if she doesn’t understand? Kate was aware of the pounding that hammered her temples, just as she became conscious of the light pound on the door. Electric jitters pulsed through her body at the sound of the rapping noise on the other side of her door. Kate momentarily wished she hadn’t agreed with Scott that she should do this alone, as she yearned for his comforting presence. However, she knew it was something she had to do on her own.

  Pushing all the “What ifs” to the edge of her mind, Kate took a deep breath as she approached the door. This was her moment of truth. She could no longer endure the consequences of her past actions, nor the guilt that plagued her until it had consumed her in the bitter stench of alcohol. After the hollow days of craving and stress that she endured within the walls of The Rosebud Retreat, this was to be her reward. Kate steadied her quivering fingers and reached for the brass door knob.

  As soon as her gaze met her daughter’s, Kate knew that her anguish had ended, because the affection she recognised in Millie’s face revealed her sincere intentions. Kate sighed with a smile.

  “Hello Millie-pie.” Her eyes took in the image of her grown daughter.

  “Hi Mum,” Millie said with a smile, as her own gaze absorbed the image of her frail mother.

  The two women embraced, and as Kate held her daughter close, she shut her eyes in a brief moment of respite. She relaxed against her, as gratitude overcame her nerves.

  “Come in Millie, we have many things to discuss.” She led Millie into the small suite she had called home for the last three weeks.

  Mother and daughter spent the next hour together on the little lounge setting in the corner of Kate’s suite. “I really didn’t think there could exist a smaller lounge room than mine,” Millie remarked with a grin. “Turns out, I was wrong!”

  After an awkward start, they both relaxed enough to chat easily. Kate thought her daughter appeared quite elated when she spoke about her life with Arella and Craig. And when Millie spoke of her artwork with a glint in her eyes, Kate knew that her daughter had found the calling of her heart’s desire. Their conversation became sombre when Kate had asked her about Ace and how she was eager to contact him too. Noticing the smoggy cloud that crossed Millie’s eyes, Kate ventured to ask if there remained a chance that Ace would allow her back into his life.

  “I don’t know, Mum,” Millie said with a sad shake of her head. “I just don’t know him anymore.”

  Kate knew enough not to press the subject for the moment; there would be time enough for everything, before a chilling thought gripped her. “Does Glen know where I am?”

  “He knows nothing, Mum,” Millie assured her, and she rested her hands on her mother’s. “You are safe.”

  Millie then steered the conversation over to Samantha. Kate discerned the undertones of Millie’s voice when she ventured onto the subject of her birth mother. She stilled the constant tremble of her fingers – a side-effect of abstinence – and suggested they go for a walk in the garden to continue their discussion.

  They stepped out the French doors that fringed Kate’s tiny lounge room onto a terracotta-tiled patio. Large terracotta pots planted with ferns and miniature trees sat behind smaller pots full of roses in full bloom, adding a cosy seclusion to th
e small patio. The two women strolled over the manicured grounds of the retreat, pausing at the stable to look at the horses.

  Millie admired the lengthy mane of a Belgian draught horse while she stroked his broad nose. “Oh …” she laughed, “You are just lovely!”

  A wet nostril nudged at her hand as the big horse sniffed her out for a snack.

  “I’m sorry, buddy. I don’t have anything to eat for you,” she said.

  They continued on to find a park bench overlooking a clear stream that bubbled and splashed over rocks and stones and down through the valley. Birds flew and circled the meandering curve of the stream as they dived and hovered for fish and insects.

  “It’s beautiful here,” Millie said, surveying the serenity around her. “I shall paint this when I return home.”

  Her expression became sombre as her eyes searched her mother for an explanation of the past.

  Kate rested her hand over her daughter’s. “When I met your father, you were only weeks old.” She chuckled at the memory of the baby girl with a shock of dark hair that had stolen her heart. “So tiny you were. And so helpless! Your father, God help him, did his best to care for you, but you needed your mother, you see?” Kate stared towards Millie. “You needed me... and I needed you.”

  “What happened to my mother? I know she is no longer alive here on earth, for she visits me with the colourful wings of an angel behind her... What happened to Samantha?” Millie asked.

  Kate’s ponytail swayed as she nodded. A fleeting smile swept across her face while her gaze continued to linger on Millie. “I always knew you were special, Millie. I knew you were gifted. I just knew …” Her voice trailed off as her smile faded. “There lives a demon within your father, Millie. A dark, evil serpent that shows itself to the world every now and then. Your mother knew of his dangerous side, yet she loved him enough to try and flush it from him with the radiance of her love.”

  A wistful smile appeared on Millie’s lips when Kate spoke of her mother’s enduring love for her father.

  “What happened to her? Did he …?” Millie faltered as the words were too much for her to utter. Her face contorted as she contemplated the unthinkable. But she had to know the truth.

  “It’s a funny thing: love,” Kate chuckled. “The things we do.” Her eyes glossed over for a moment as visions and memories of a past she longed to forget flooded back. “He confessed everything to me one night during an emotional breakdown; it was the guilt you see … he had to tell someone. He had to find his solace. His justification.”

  “What did he tell you?” Millie pressed.

  “He knew she had had enough of his demons. He knew he would lose her, and you.” Kate shook her head as her eyes brimmed with tears. “He came home from work one night, and Samantha had been taking a bath while you were sleeping.” Thin fingers tightened over Millie’s hand. “He crept in the bathroom behind her … and he pushed her head under the water until the very last breath of life had slipped out of her. Glen told me that what had irked him the most was not that he had murdered the woman that he loved, but that when he had pushed her head under the bath water, she looked up at him without a scrap of struggle or fright within her eyes. All he saw there was love.”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks while Millie grimaced at hearing the raw truth.

  “Samantha,” she whispered. “He took her from me, from the world.” Millie shook her head slowly and looked out at the stream.

  The ache that had wedged deep within Kate’s heart throbbed as she looked at her daughter. “Millie, he couldn’t bear to lose you. His mind is not always his own,” she stammered. “I helped your father conceal the truth from you all those years. I am so, so sorry.” Kate leaned closer and embraced Millie in silence for a few minutes.

  “She forgave him as soon as he had pushed her beneath the water,” Millie’s ruffled whisper broke the silence between them.

  Kate noticed the whimsical expression on Millie’s face as she gazed through the lances of sunlight that pierced the canopy of trees around them, glistening in short bursts of rainbows against the spray of the stream.

  “How do you know that?” Kate asked.

  Millie turned to Kate. “Because she is frolicking with the butterflies among the rainbows before us. She smiles at us, and she wants us to know that she exists in glory.”

  Kate felt a contented wave of happiness flush through her as she briefly discovered the pure tickle of joy that bounced through her spine. She had not felt this comfortable for the longest of time, and she knew its effect was one of healing – curing the mind, mending the heart, and healing the soul. She perceived every atom of the divine power surrounding her, and somehow knew that the source of the angelic energy belonged not to Samantha but Millie. Samantha was waiting for Millie to recognise her power! Kate suddenly became aware that her daughter was unaware of the crucial path that lay before her, and the role she was to play in shifting human consciousness so the light may flood the earth once more. The divine nature of the revelation was so fleeting that Kate’s stillness almost betrayed the disappointment that now briefly engulfed her.

  Kate found a delicate smile playing across her lips, and turning to Millie, directed its warmth towards her daughter. “Glory,” she murmured with bright eyes. She tilted her head up at the lush green canopy hanging over them and began to laugh. Small cackling bursts grew into giggles until her laughter echoed against the trees. She laughed with the abandonment of freedom clasping at her heaving chest. She laughed with the impulsive liberty of a child, as years-long hindrances fell away from around her heart. Kate felt free for the first time in years of the guilt that had shadowed her since she had left her children; free from the crippling constraints of the uncertainty that had plagued her life for as long as she could remember; and free from the exhausting wheel of emotional pain that had brought her down.

  She turned to Millie. “Can you hear them, Millie?” Kate asked.

  “Hear who, Mum.” Millie watched her mother with gentle amusement.

  “The birds,” Kate said, as she gestured towards the trees above. “Listen … They sing for you. What do you hear?”

  Millie looked up into the radiant shine of the green canopy. Her lips widened into a grin when she heard their song, as it was a song she had heard them sing ten years before when she had been laying broken and trembling upon a bed of cool tiles on a gritty bathroom floor. She looked back at her mother with eyes wide and glistening, and smiled. “I hear all the people of the world,” she said.

  Kate nodded in agreement. “You can help change their world, Millie.”

  “How?” Brows knitted in confusion.

  “Use your imagination, sweetheart.”

  ***

  Millie had stayed with Kate until the sun had almost faded from view over the horizon. It was then that they ambled back to Kate’s ground floor rooms in the big manor, taking their time in each other’s company while both of them purposefully strung out their last moments together. When it was time for Millie to leave her, Kate hugged her daughter close and breathed in the sweet scent of perfume that drifted from the nape of her neckline.

  “Thank you for coming to see me today, Millie.”

  Millie returned Kate’s embrace. “I have a meeting tomorrow for the gallery, then a late flight booked home. I would like to come by before my flight, if that’s okay with you?”

  “I would like that very much,” Kate said.

  “Great!” Millie turned towards the hire car she had driven out to the valley. “I’ll see you around six tomorrow night.”

  Kate wrapped her arms around herself as she watched the white sedan trek its way down the long winding dirt road back to the city. She sighed with contentment as the afternoon she had spent with Millie had brought with it much more than she had ever dreamed possible. Those few precious hours had somehow alleviated the weight in her heart and had given her a renewed determination to complete the abstinence program at Rosebud. For now, she knew she had found
a family again – her family. She skipped up the stairs of the big white house and hurried towards her rooms where she could dwell in the loveliness of her thoughts and await Scott’s arrival.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  B ringing the maroon Softail Heritage to a rumbling stop, Ace paused to peer along the road that led to the prize he had been seeking. The blue glint of his eyes concealed themselves behind the dark tint of his sunglasses while they scanned and plotted the final moves in the game in which he had found himself. I wonder how quickly she will recognise her baby boy. He couldn’t wait to see the expression on her face when he revealed himself to her. How intoxicating the anticipation felt within him. He sneered with pleasure at the projected images of what was to come. Ace gave the powerful engine a shot of fuel, and gazed around to find cover for his bike between the nearby thick foliage. There he would find the perfect hideaway for his bike, and the privacy to indulge in the sensual urges that seduced him. And why not? Ace thought, as he reached for his pulsing member, deliberately enticing a further bulge under his jeans. The last two days had been a long trek, and he needed to unwind a little. He reasoned that he couldn’t risk any silly urges fogging up his mind when he performed the task ahead of him. He needed clarity on his side.

  Ace smiled to himself while he savoured the final throbs that raced through his body. His long fingers dug deep inside the hidden chest pocket of his leather jacket, and he grinned when he touched the object he sought. He studied the cold steel edges of the chrome switchblade with fascination. He shut his eyes and allowed the serpent to encompass him totally. It quashed every inch of light within him, every laughter and joy that remained, and every bit of love that still traced through his veins. Ace granted the rancour of the black serpent to flourish through every part of his being while allowing the demon unlimited admittance to seek and destroy any relics of affection for his mother that might still be lurking within him. He knew there would be no room for error during the visit he was about to pay his dear, dear mother, and no room for doubt.